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Thanks to GameSpy for its editorial discussing whether America is ready for more TV coverage of competitive gaming, following on from last week's QuakeCon, of which it's claimed: "Television coverage of the event was almost non-existent... although many media outlets did a story on QuakeCon, and taped a few interviews with competitors at the event, none covered the finals in a play-by-play fashion." One editor suggests gaming just isn't appealing enough: ("Deathmatch as we know it just isn't it yet. Visually it isn't too sexy if you're not, yourself, a hardcore player"), whereas a contrasting view is presented by another editor ("The competitive FPS scene in America is also ripe for television. All we'd need to do to get that up and running in the US is copy what the Starleague has done [using StarCraft] in Korea.")

is so far off and incompatible. The contrasts between pop and traditional culture in Korea and America are so drastic.. it really doesn't behoove any game-TV advocates to make that analogy, as it is very doubtful that an American TV producers would be convinced by this argument.

Although I belive that since it's gotten far enough this ready (QuakeCon, CPL championships, etc.) game coverage TV certainly isn't a far fetched idea - nor far away from becoming a reality. In the next decade, at least, I assure everyone that you'll be hearing about and following champion game players and teams in the same manner we do today with football, baseball etc.

In the next decade, at least, I assure everyone that you'll be hearing about and following champion game players and teams in the same manner we do today with football, baseball etc.

I assure you that is a very far-fetched notion. Do you have any idea how many people follow football, baseball, "etc"? Personally (see my user name) I play video games more than the average bloke, but even I can't stand watching people play video games, if for no other reason than -- heck, I could be playing video games! But I watch a lot of hockey, football, baseball, and college basketball, if for no other reason than -- damn, they are pretty good!

Even the best Quake player is absolutely zero fun to watch. But hey, in today's era of a thousand digital channels, many dedicated to even smaller niche clientelle, why not some video game coverage? Obviously there is some small market for it.

But putting it on the level of football, baseball? The next time you see 50,000 people paying an average of $50 to sit in the cold and watch someone play video games, let me know! 10 years? Maybe -- maybe -- 100 years. It would take such a monumental shift in American culture that I just can't see it -ever- happening. We enjoy -real- violence and -real- sport, it is nearly instinctive.

Reminds me of a quote which I'll have to paraphrase since I can't remember it fully: "Hey, there's this new video game, with unbelievable resolution, perfect frames per second, no lag! It's called real life."

Video games are something fun to do when it's too dark/cold/rainy to go outside.

Ummm... Movies? Last time I checked, they were mostly not real life, and mostly enjoyed by large audiences.

The draw of sports is not whether they are real or not, it's the competition, the winners and losers, the skill of beating the other guy. I'm sure you've noticed that 'wrestling' shows you have over there in the US. Surely you don't think that is real.

The basic point holding games from becoming a spectator sport is the difficulty o

I haven't seen any of the QuakeCon setup, but any deathmatch style clips I've seen broadcast on G4 have always been from the first person point of view. That's so boring.
You need several camera's that a director can control to watch the action from above or a 3rd person point of view. That way the audience could see where the snipers are camping, and when two people are going to run into each other as they come around a corner.
Just like any other sport, where there's a hundred cameras running to get the best shot.

First off, don't show it live! At least not the first year or so, because you're gonna need practice to get good coverage. Think of what's more cinematic to see, a live NFL game or one of the "NFL Films". This sort of brings us to our next technical limitation.

This is easy to cover in existing PC games (especially modded ones -- who knows, iD games might already have this), it's a bit more difficult for console games. Specifically, you would need to create a utility that "tapes" the game, in a replayable, demo format. From that point on, a spectator should be able to access that feed and basically see it from any angle, including pause, rewind, fast-forward, and preferably, some sort of slo-mo to get that hip* Matrix style everyone is talking about.

Now, once this is done, you need to get a really good editor to put all this together, as well as a director. They don't need to come from the "traditional" film world -- I think Randall Glass [warthog-jump.com] would be excellent, for example, or . So now, say, a match on Blood Gulch (to stay with the same game), isn't just a first player perspective, but a third-person view. You have overhead shots of a gunfight, behind-the-vehicle shots of a Warthog, etc. This makes it much more exciting. Replay multiple angles of a scene, etc.

Here's another important part -- narration! You don't want to dumb it down too much but you don't want to use too many "insider" words. "That noob spawn-camped on the RFK. That's LOL! 45 TTT! Hahaha!"

The end result should be very close to watching a narrated action movie. Oh, and I don't want to see the players during the game! I don't care! They're mostly not photogenic at all.

The reality is that you have shaky video playing over someone's shoulder, and then the narrator saying "As you can see, Edgar300 is going wild!" with a shot of explosions in UT that don't tell me what he's getting "wild" about.

There just is not any interest in me seeing that sort of crap, and I think I'm probably a good target audience, considering I'm into games but not a "hardcore gamer".

Very good. I agree that recorded and edited is much better than realtime. There's just too much going on if you have more than 4 people, and there's no pause in the action like regular sports.
So, when do you want to get together do we can pitch our idea to ESPN. We'll make millions!!!!! LOL

Oh, and I don't want to see the players during the game! I don't care! They're mostly not photogenic at all.

If you don't show and don't involve the players, then you just have a CG action film. There needs to be a human side to any show to make it more balanced. Poker coverage on ESPN is a good example of this: the show isn't 100% dedicated to watching poker hands. That would get boring fast. Instead, interviews with players are mixed in, as well as other tidbits that emphasize and bring to attention the

If you don't show and don't involve the players, then you just have a CG action film.

Which would actually likely appeal highly to the target audience. I have to agree with the parent poster - while I'd be greatly interested in watching the game, I have no interest in watching people playing the game. Current shows like the god-awful Arena simply show the geeks playing the game, and give the first-person view. As a gamer, I want to play games, not watch other people play games. If the show is centered ar

Robot Wars didn't do too well (so maybe it isn't a good example), but they tried to get around the fact that the robot owners were, for the most part, not interesting to "Joe Average" by trying to give the robots personallity.

You could do this with an Unreal FPS by adding a totally customizible character editors like they have in many MMPOG (like City of Heros and StarWars).

This is easy to cover in existing PC games (especially modded ones -- who knows, iD games might already have this), it's a bit more difficult for console games. Specifically, you would need to create a utility that "tapes" the game, in a replayable, demo format. From that point on, a spectator should be able to access that feed and basically see it from any angle, including pause, rewind, fast-forward, and preferably, some sort of slo-mo to get that hip* Matrix style everyone is talking about.

So what you're saying is that the question is really, in Soviet Russia, is Competivie Gaming on TV ready for America? Except not in Soviet Russia, in America, ahh, screw it.

First off, don't show it live! At least not the first year or so

Like you said, this sounds great for a trial run at how to do the coverage right. However in order for it to make the transition to live tv you'd also need to add some sort of ghost functinality to any game being used so you could have realtime "camera" operators inside

I don't remember how they handle it in StarCraft, but Red Alert 2 had a ghost mode added just for Korean TV broadcasts.

One of Starcraft's patches added replay functionality. At the end of a game, you save the replay so you can watch it later. You can fast forward, pause, etc, when watching a replay, and you can choose to have the entire map revealed or look at things from a certain player's view.

Of course, I don't know what they do for live matches. Do they even have live SC broadcasts?

A game that lends itself well to this is the Best Game No One Played, Microsoft Allegiance [freeallegiance.org].

It's a RTS + FPS/Flightsim requiring team effort to win. Combining a StarCraft-esque viewpoint and econ management for the commanders and a Wing Commander space combat feel for pilots, Allegiance appeals to a wide potential audience.

When you switch from 1st person to 3rd person mode in Allegiance, the camera seemlessly pulls out of your ship and swoops upward into t

They are trying to broadcast the wrong game. They should try and cover one of those crazy street fighter tournaments. There are a lot of advantages:

-Game is better suited to espectators.-Real skill can be noticed.-Every game seems different.-You can actually say "woah, that combo was cool", grab your console and try it. All the skill in a FPS leads to teamwork (hard to see for a spectator anyway) or aim. Aiming is boring as hell. Yeah you can kill a pixel miles away. It doesn't look cool if you aren't doin

There's a station available in Winamp that I believe is called "FragTV" that plays peoples recorded kills to music. I've spent more than a few hours watching it, though I'll admit, there probably aren't a lot of people like me out there that would enjoy this as much as me... but there is surely an audience.

If there is a niche for where to broadcast games and attract an audience, it is the internet. The problem is that it takes some sort of organizational structure to keep the average person interested. If the content is on TV it is being produced, possibly set to music, and presented to the audience.
The side people are already in tune to is the ability to simply put a few clips up online and then let the best of them gain ratings so that users can watch them. That is just too much work for the average bear,

The recent success of World Series of Poker championships on ESPN (and, yes, the word is 'success,' as the stuff has been driving up ESPN's ratings in surprising fashion) proves that what you're saying isn't so much of a joke.

People will watch any competition on television if it's crafted correctly. Forget the other stuff people have said about making televised competitions look like movies. G4 does that sometimes and the result is boring.

Part of the success of poker on tv though is the thrill in seeing someone bet half a million dollars on a single hand. I realize that they're not really betting a half million dollars (and certainly not of their own money) but I don't think there is any hook like this comparable for gaming.

Futhermore, I don't think there is enough of an audience for gaming to make it as popular as poker is. Granted this will change to acertain degree as people who grew up playing games get older. But I think this will alwa

I am a rabid gamer for almost 30 years (yes, Pong on up!). I still play games a lot. Do I like to watch competitions on TV? No. They're uninteresting. Even more, the commentary is not needed. Commentary detracts from the overall experience.

Watching games played on TV is exactly like watching bowling or golf on TV. To me, these three things (video games, bowling, golf) are fun to play, but not to watch. It kind of reminds me that I'm not doing anything but vegetating in front of the boob tube.

Actually, there are some out there who enjoy watching fighting games. There are several web sites out there which host videos of experts playing them against each other, and I have to admit that it can be quite impressive at times (especially when they can pull off advanced combos).

I tend to find watching sports that I know nothing about to be very boring. For instance, watching an NFL game before I played football was just like watching a meaningless pile-on of huge men - but after learning both the rules and the nuances of strategy involved it became much more interesting to watch.

I think good commentating would play a large part in keeping a televised gaming event interesting. Someone to describe to the home viewing audience what is happening on screen ("we can see here in the r

to see things they wish they could do. It's incredibly cool to see someone pull a 30+ hit combo in a game like Virtua Fighter or Street Fighter III. Anyone remember that video posted on/. a few weeks back where the guy parried a super from Chun-Li?. I can't do that, but it's cool seeing it done..

LOL. A friend of mine watched it. It was followed by a marbles championship. 40-year-olds with cat's eyes and the like. Fortunately, they were beat out by a kid (IIRC, he was about 10 or so). But yes, it is scary.

...if only they had more than one screen onscreen at the same time, but limited to 4 screens at most. Yes, that would be confusing, but it adds to the watcher's experience to yell "Watch out behind you!" when you KNOW its not going to be any good.

Of course, sound would become bad... really bad. So, 1 screen it is... but whose? The winners, or one of the losers?

The only time I ever saw a deathmatch on tv was when flipping around a while ago on g4 maybe. It was boring as hell. It was either tribes or unreal ctf game. I never got into either of those games too much, so I didn't know the map or the weapons. Which means I didn't know what the hell was going on. They would cut to a 3rd person view of some guy fraggin another, then running on. Then would cut to someone running with the flag. The only thing I saw was a random string of fragging clips that made no sense.

This would be really boring on tv to people who don't even know what these games look like, or what the point of th em are.

There are some ways to help that though. The first thing is to slow the game down to maybe half life speed running speed. Quake and unreal are maybe a bit too fast. It's hard to get an eye for where someone is when they cover ground so quickly, and hard to soak up changes when the field moves around so much.

There needs to be an overhead map showing all the teams on at all time. The map has to color code the teams, show who is carrying the flag, and highlight who we are watching. This would be hard to accomplish on maps with multiple floors.

Another thing they could do, is break down the game for us. Let's say that one guy is running back with the flag, some defenders hot on his heels. Ahead of him in a room, defenders have set up an ambush. Just as he gets in the room, the ambush is sprung, and they start firing on the flag carrier.

But out of the corner, some defenders pop out and frag the ambushers, drop down, and stop the other defenders.

On tv coverage, I'd like to see them pause before the flag guy gets into the room, set up the scene by paning around and showing me the situation, the flag guy is running into an ambush. Show the guy run in, tell me it's lights out for the flag guy, showing me an angle where I am behind the ambushers and can see the flag carrier. Then, as the attacker's friends run in, pan up to show them emerge and start shooting and scoring the frags. Let the announcer show me this blow by blow, explaining it the whole way.

This way, I know where they were on the map, watched them set up the play, and can see how well executed it was.

Basically they just need to break it down and explain it, and pause the action to show us split screens from a 3rd person view, and show someone's uncanny aiming ability from first person view, and also show me health and armor values as the fight progresses.

Either way, the game still isn't going to be fun to watch by someone who has never played the game being shown, as you'll only be watching graphics and animation, and won't appreciate the skill of the players.

In athletics, everyone can relate to someone running fast or jumpping high, you can't relate to a great ability to rail someone after seeing them on the screen across the map through a little tiny window for half a second.

Yes, you're right. The thing with computer games it's that, realistically, only the ones playing or hardcore fans will enjoy and/or understand what's going on. Regular people won't know, and probably wouldn't care to know either. You can enjoy sports you're not familiar with if you catch them on the fly on TV, but it's not that simple with computer games.
Not only that, but how can you cover a multiplayer LAN game on TV in real time? In, say, soccer, you follow the ball. How can you cover the (normally

But, in America, people like to be active participants in something when they can be. Most can't play in sports professionally, but they can play video games and end up becoming good at them. So, there's no way in hell this will have widespread appeal.

The first problem here, obviously, is that people just don't realize how much of a gap there is between the top players in almost any given video game and the people that just play alone, or a random public game maybe a couple times a week. Sure, most people

One problem is the low barrier of entry. You plop down cash for the game, you take it home and play it. In time, you'll probably be about as good as almost everybody else that you play.

This may be true of some of the more shallow games out there, but you're very, very wrong on this skills point with regards to the games that are played at competetive levels. I've played against some of the best FPS gamers in the UK (who are competetive at the highest level available) and believe me, the skill difference

I can't imagine a host being picked out for gaming television that isn't annoying. Hell, there are even several announcers in NFL and the NBA that I find increasingly annoying. Imagine what a gaming show would get? I think I'm having flashbacks of Battle Bots.

There are several steps pointed out in the Gamespy article that need to happen before competitive gaming becomes a reality. One of the major ones is the need for a game that looks great, is TV friendly, doesn't require hacked up config files to allow you to be good, and is fun to watch. Ladies and gentlemen: that game is Halo.

Halo is already tremendously popular on college campuses, and you'll get many guys who don't normally enjoy video games excited about 8 on 8 capture the flag games. It's almost as

I think CS would be better, it based in the real world, and everyone is terrorist crazy right now. And CS is the most played game.

A couple announcers go into observer mode, and do play by play. You could switch between announcers and players view while doing playbacks on nice kills. Get some nice replays, maybe do overlays like the NFL.

A perfect world would be, record everyones game, and then an editor/director could cut together the game the game, so a 20 minu

There are already some video games that are fun to watch. the Grand Theft Auto series is one of them - the reason is because you can see all sorts of entertaining things and there is generally nonstop action.

Personally I cannot stand to watch someone play video games -- and GTA is one of the worst to watch.

What makes games interesting to watch on tv isn't just the usual *hard-hitting* action (in this case comparable to frags), but its the understanding of strategy and to see how competitors are able to mentally and physically counter their opponents. This is especially applicable to the novelty events mentioned already: Scrabble, Poker, Magic(?!?!). As mentioned, this requires the ability to record the game from any perspective (3rd person especially), and definitely requires the ability to use instant repl

Spectator video gaming has a big problem. Any spectator, using precisely the same equipment, is fully equipped to compete. The sole differentiator is experience/skill level at the particular game.

And this is different to playing soccer / baseball / football / whatever, how exactly?

Just because people get a little out of shape (or even disabled) doesn't mean they are incapable of playing sports. It does mean they won't be able to play at the highest level, granted - but that applies to pro-gamers as we

Try re-reading my post and while you're at it, try to poke your head out of your own arse long enough to see my point, AC.

And as for a "Strawman" - what? Please, quite clearly and directly explain why you think I was misrepresenting your standpoint. Your premise was that to be competetive in gaming the primary barrier was financial - I rebutted, saying that skill and training were just as important in professional gaming as in professional sports. The one and only point where I possibly caricatured your p

What I mean by a "TV Server" mode is a way of being able to select a certain player's perspective, or even third person, and a "view from the sky" perspective so you can see a couple of guys hunting down eachother. That way a spectator can get a view of the stratagy without having to be psychic. People watch football and can see the plays unfold, if all they had was a helmet cam it wouldn't be nearly as interesting.

As far as "boring" goes, compare videogames to golf, baseball, and curling.

You're assuming that TV is the end-all be-all for this format. Why not a television-like production streamed online instead, where your audience is more likely to exist and be more easily advertargeted.

I absolutely agree with your comment about TV as not being the end-all be-all format. In fact I'll go further and say that TV as we know it today is going to be evolving in a big way in the near future. I believe gaming will be on the forefront of this evolution and IP based networks will be enabling it.

I will make a prediction that the online console gaming networks of Sony and Microsoft will eventually morph and they will look more like media networks with daily programming schedules and that a large p

There are other televised competitions that cater to niche crowds that, unless you are a hardcore fan (of *watching*, not just participating) would be boring as hell. Two that spring to mind immediately: Golf and Bowling. How either of these two sports survived (or in Golf's case, thrived) on television is beyond me. Neither have *any* action to speak of, both move at a snail's pace, neither involve any significant strategy, and neither are really "in your face" competitive. I'm not saying that makes them bad sports, but it does make for bad television. But somehow, there are enough fans to keep televising them viable. I think that with the past two generations having grown up on video games, ESPN can afford to risk an hour a week to televising video game tournaments. The fan base is definitely there.

My wife, who was living in Japan at the time, sent me a recording of a Street Fighter 2 competition, and I found it pretty fun to watch. They had a huge warehouse with about 200 super famicons setup, and showed highlights of fights up until the final eight, where they then started showing every match.

I am not sure if I found it fun to watch because I like Street Fighter, or if I just enjoyed how serious those players got.

If anything, from watching competitions you can see moves that you never knew befo

I think it would be interesting to watch if you could have coverage from "inside the game." Real-life sports are fun because the camera allows you to see the players in their appropriate context (in left field, on the sideline, etc). I wouldn't want to watch FPS gaming from a first-person perspective of a character or over the shoulder of a player, but it might be cool to have a 3/4 view of a CTF map where I could see the characters (with names floating overhead) moving around.

Game network (a European channelw hich shows on satalite in the UK) covered one of the large TFC leagues.

I watched a couple of games on it but I found it boring, not because of how it was done. I just played TFC for several years and watching these guys just conc, bunny hop and repeat (tricks which makea really fast paced game but I totally hate) seemed no fun to me. I'd rather have a slower more tactical game.

It used to air every day 2-3 times a day and from what I know didn't do too baddly.

Judging by the lousy ARENA show on G4, no it doesn't have a place. Part of that of course being that the people participating in these shows SUCK at the games.

It's really sad to be flipping through TV with some buddies, come across two teams playing a PS2 FPS none of us have ever played before, and the firsty comment out of someone's mouth within 30 seconds is "We've never played this game before and we'd mop the floor with both teams".

Maybe if you make it into more than just a game. I'd probably only watch it if it were Battlefield: 1942, and only if there was professionals designing the missions, and only if there were advanced players, and only if, if the setup were to be modeled on an actual event in history, if historical parallels were available and on-hand -- and the players didn't know (or at least weren't told) about them.

Now that I think about it, that's a hell of a lot of restrictions. But third-party omniscient, professional commentary on "what they did, what they should've done, and what really happened" would very much interest me, especially if we're talking about times and places of major battles in the past.

As for as "video game sports" go, I think it would be far more interesting to watch a team based scenario like capture the flag. Multiple perspectives, good use of the spectator cam (keep one camera on each flag at all times), good commentary, good production, etc...
For a more movie like clip, deathmatch would work, as long as it was first person from the best player's perspective owning everyone... set to a good musical background... and no longer than 5 minutes.

There are a lot of people saying that this won't work because it's boring to watch other people play games because it's more fun to play than to watch, etc.

To them, I ask, Why do people watch other people play chess?

Maybe this is a culturally relitivistic thing, but there's an appreciation for watching others play computer games in Korea that goes beyond mere passing interest. Finals for Starcraft tournaments can pack small stadiums. Granted, it's Darwinistic -- since I've come here, I've seen computer ga

I agree with the earlier post that watching a (any) FPS over a player's shoulder is annoying, dull and suffers from a lack of 'connected-ness' with the overall action, even for a gamer. The existing efforts are crap. When we watch a sport like NFL, hockey, etc... we are all engaging in a joint experience with the teams, and all the other viewers. The purpose is clear, and shared. This creates a sense of belonging and connectedness, even during water cooler banter. FPS and RTS on TV is, IMO, akin to putting